I have a circle of friends which gets together for "spicy food nite". We used to be young and tried to tempt each other with an incremental bite of tasty food that was amplified by yet more fire in the face hole and the impending realization that our next shit would be more incendiary. Fun times, but we have also acquired spouses who were not so inclined so things are toning back a bit.

I decided to attempt Alton Brown's tempura preparation with various vegetables and seafood adding finely diced habaneros to the breading. I had once prepared a really good stir fried crab where I used some starch to glue various tasty things to the legs: toasted shallots, garlic, habanero etc. It was delicious, but having to orally suck off the breading, then crack off the shell resulted in a decrease in rate of consumption of crab and also resulted in everyone getting habanero oil stuck to their hands (a terrible consequence resulted if one rubbed their eyes or participated in the orgy afterwards).

I had reasoned that adding similar ingredients to the tempura batter to shelled par cooked crab would not require the direct use of hands afterwards and subsequent contamination. The crab was boiled for 5 minutes to get it to release from the shell, then meat cooled in the fridge overnight so it would not overcook in the deep fry.

It was barely spicy. The habaneros blew off all their capsaicin into the fryer oil and was hardly hot. Next attempt I will marinate the crab meat in a spicy marinade before battering with a traditional tempura batter.

Lesson learned: the high temperature of deep frying will mobilize a lot of aromatics, oil soluble things can be washed away by very hot oil.